“Everybody that went out of the room passed along that side of the table,” remarked the sergeant. “If anybody wanted to pick it up and carry it off, they’d nothing to do but put a hand out. Nobody would notice—in that crush.”
“Who should want to carry it off?” asked Blick with asperity.
Summers, who had been assisting in the search, suddenly chuckled.
“There’s one man in existence who’d have been jolly glad to carry it off!” he exclaimed.
Blick looked up, frowning.
“What do you mean?” he snapped out. “Who?—what man?”
“The man who left it on the supper-table at the Sceptre, of course!” retorted Summers, with another chuckle. “How do you know he wasn’t there amongst the deeply-interested audience? May have been!”
Blick threw aside a final mass of papers, and turned to the door.
“Well, it’s gone, anyway!” he muttered.
“Nice piece of evidence disappeared, too,” soliloquized Summers. “You might have traced it to its rightful owner, Mr. Blick. But I think he’s got it—what? Clever! However, if he’s the person who purloined it off this table, you know one thing—he’s somebody who’s somewhere close at hand. Eh, Mr. Blick?”